Pragmatically, I think many of the old folks around EA are either doing very well, or are kind of lost/exploring other avenues. Other areas allow people to have more reputable positions, but these are typically not very EA/effective areas. Often E2G isn’t very high-status in these clusters, so I think a lot of these people just stop doing much effective work.
I haven’t really noticed this happening very much empirically, but I do think the effect you are talking about is quite intuitive. Have you seen many cases of this that you’re confident are correct (e.g. they aren’t lost for other reasons like working on non-public projects or being burnt out)? No need to mention specific names.
In theory, EAs are people who try to maximize their expected impact. In practice, EA is a light ideology that typically has a limited impact on people. I think that the EA scene has demonstrated success at getting people to adjust careers (in circumstances where it’s fairly cheap and/or favorable to do so)
This seems incorrect to me, in absolute terms. By the standards of ~any social movement, EAs are very sacrificial and focused on increasing their impact. I suspect you somewhat underrate how rare it is outside of EA to be highly committed to ~any non-self-serving principles seriously enough to sacrifice significant income and change careers, particularly in new institutions/movements.
Have you seen many cases of this that you’re confident are correct (e.g. they aren’t lost for other reasons like working on non-public projects or being burnt out)? No need to mention specific names.
I’m sure that very few of these are explained by “non-public projects”.
I’m unsure about burnout. I’m not sure where the line is between “can’t identify high-status work to do” and burnout. I expect that the two are highly correlated. My guess is that they don’t literally think of it as “I’m low status now”, instead I’d expect them to feel emotions like resentment / anger / depression. But I’d also expect that if we could change the status lever, other negative feelings would go away. (I think that status is a big deal for people! Like, status means you have a good career, get to be around people you like, etc)
> I suspect you somewhat underrate how rare it is outside of EA to be highly committed to ~any non-self-serving principles seriously enough to sacrifice significant income and change careers.
I suspect we might have different ideologies in mind to compare to, and correspondingly, that we’re not disagreeing much.
I think that a lot of recently-popular movements like BLM or even MAGA didn’t change the average lifestyle of the median participant much at all, though much of this is because they are far larger.
But religious groups are far more intense, for example. Or maybe take dedicated professional specialties like ballet or elite music, which can require intense sacrifices.
Pragmatically, I think many of the old folks around EA are either doing very well, or are kind of lost/exploring other avenues. Other areas allow people to have more reputable positions, but these are typically not very EA/effective areas. Often E2G isn’t very high-status in these clusters, so I think a lot of these people just stop doing much effective work.
I haven’t really noticed this happening very much empirically, but I do think the effect you are talking about is quite intuitive. Have you seen many cases of this that you’re confident are correct (e.g. they aren’t lost for other reasons like working on non-public projects or being burnt out)? No need to mention specific names.
In theory, EAs are people who try to maximize their expected impact. In practice, EA is a light ideology that typically has a limited impact on people. I think that the EA scene has demonstrated success at getting people to adjust careers (in circumstances where it’s fairly cheap and/or favorable to do so)
This seems incorrect to me, in absolute terms. By the standards of ~any social movement, EAs are very sacrificial and focused on increasing their impact. I suspect you somewhat underrate how rare it is outside of EA to be highly committed to ~any non-self-serving principles seriously enough to sacrifice significant income and change careers, particularly in new institutions/movements.
I’m sure that very few of these are explained by “non-public projects”.
I’m unsure about burnout. I’m not sure where the line is between “can’t identify high-status work to do” and burnout. I expect that the two are highly correlated. My guess is that they don’t literally think of it as “I’m low status now”, instead I’d expect them to feel emotions like resentment / anger / depression. But I’d also expect that if we could change the status lever, other negative feelings would go away. (I think that status is a big deal for people! Like, status means you have a good career, get to be around people you like, etc)
> I suspect you somewhat underrate how rare it is outside of EA to be highly committed to ~any non-self-serving principles seriously enough to sacrifice significant income and change careers.
I suspect we might have different ideologies in mind to compare to, and correspondingly, that we’re not disagreeing much.
I think that a lot of recently-popular movements like BLM or even MAGA didn’t change the average lifestyle of the median participant much at all, though much of this is because they are far larger.
But religious groups are far more intense, for example. Or maybe take dedicated professional specialties like ballet or elite music, which can require intense sacrifices.